verify --platform printed N optional core files and N game data files
missing and named none, even with --verbose. --verbose now lists them as
MISSING (optional) and MISSING (game data), and without it the count line
says --verbose lists them, as the line about cores with no external file
already did.
An element's mandatory flag came from the one truth entry its md5 paired
with. saturn/saturn_bios.bin names yabause, yabasanshiro and kronos,
which require it, and was paired with the beetle_saturn entry, which
does not. Each named core's entries for the file, found by name, now
decide, except a namesake elsewhere in the same tree (bluemsx KANJI.rom
under Shared Roms is not the one under MSX2+ - European).
declaration_settles tested the exact-case name before the slot, so on a
filesystem that folds case a declaration spelled otherwise never settled
the core's file: RetroBat's 32X_G_BIOS.BIN left BlastEm's 32X_G_BIOS.bin
undeclared, and verify counted ten such entries as core files. A slot a
case-insensitive platform fills now settles the entry whatever the
spelling (case_folded_slots), the slot arbitration judging its bytes as
for the exact name. Lakka and RetroPie, which keep both names, are
unchanged. Measured: 10 entries settle on RetroBat, 21 on RetroArch.
generate_site.py builds its gap report through cross_reference() without
the folded slots; it needs folded_declared_slots() passed in the same way
as the command line now does.
Each content-checked line ended with a verdict on the platform's list,
printed at pipeline step 3b. The line now says which emulators read the
other file, and the closing count says the rest follow the platform's
list. The module source carries no such verdict, a test reads it.
The 3.12 guard rested on generate_readme f-strings that have since been
rewritten. Every script compiles under CPython 3.9.25, 3.10 and 3.11, and
only generate_pack's parenthesized context managers fail under 3.8. Under
3.9 the offline pipeline (--skip-packs) completed with no change to the
committed artifacts, the 15 manifests matched 3.12 byte for byte, and the
RomM pack was identical. CI now compiles every script under a real 3.9.
cross_reference.py --emulator abuse printed "Gaps: 3 missing" above three
[BUNDLED] files, then "0 missing (need to be sourced)" in the total. The
heading and the total now read one count: bundled files appear as
"N bundled", never among the missing.
entry_source took a name or path hit before reading the hashes the entry
declares, so the gap report and the site counted as held a file whose
only homonym has other bytes: zquestclassic's ending.mid and gameover.mid
matched Hydra Castle Labyrinth's. A name or path hit now counts only
when its record carries one of the declared hashes, and the declared
content anywhere in bios/ comes before a data/ copy. Measured over every
profile entry: 254 change, 248 bundled ones (report and site only),
three unsourceable SC-55 revisions now read missing, three data hits
read bios by hash.
FileConsumers resolved profile entries without the data directory
registry the builder uses. Dolphin's hashless codehandler.bin then took
Dolphin-MMJR's copy by name, and the site listed Dolphin and Triforce as
its readers while every pack serves data/dolphin-sys. blueMSX's RS232.ROM
and MSX2P.rom were credited to bios/ copies the same way. The registry
is now read by default, as the builder reads it.
With it, bundled_only.py --strict (pipeline step 4d) names
bios/Other/dolphin-mmjr/codehandler.bin: only dolphin-mmjr's bundled
entry, which already carries its sha1 and size, reaches that copy.
A destination no platform declares went to the first claimant in profile
order whatever the proof: fbalpha2012 asks for hiscore.dat by name and
took the root of six packs over cores that pin it by sha1. Claims on a
contested path are now ranked by what the collection holds for each (a
held declared hash, then a path or every required archive member, then a
name, then a contradicted hash), and profile order only breaks ties.
Measured: 14 slots change file across the platforms, among them
hiscore.dat, kick13.rom on RetroPie, cgb_boot.bin and dmg_boot.bin on
EmuDeck, and ROCKNIX neogeo.zip and neocdz.zip.
The recipe snapshot kept only the archives a profile or platform names,
so provenance_report --missing named no set for dumps a public romset
carries (fm7740sx holds the FM77AV40SX DICROM, EXTSUB and KANJI2 ROMs).
The importer now also keeps the sets holding a catalog entry the
collection lacks. Reimported from mame0289 and the cached FBNeo DATs:
MAME 1726 to 2148 recipes, FBNeo 104 to 111, none dropped.
The help said "Only regenerate DB and verify" while steps 1b, 4d, 7 and
8 still ran and rewrote derivable.json, README.md and docs/. It now names
the steps it skips and points to --skip-docs.
Started outside the repository root, both ended on a FileNotFoundError
traceback: the database and the data registry name files from the root.
They now move to the root after reading the paths the caller typed, which
stay relative to where they were typed.
_enrich_hashes repeated "ground truth" five times with capitalised
insistence for a three-step lookup, and the MAME ZIP rebuild listed
three guarantees of which two were the same.
Every step runs from the repository root, but the lock and the purge of
stale packs read --output-dir from the caller's directory. Started from
scripts/, the run locked and purged scripts/dist/ and wrote to dist/,
leaving the stale packs there. The directory is now made absolute before
the lock, dist/ at the root by default.
Quick Install was the one Title Case heading left in the published
text. The Files sentence was glued to the paragraph above it, two
paragraphs before the table whose column it describes. It now names
the column and sits just above the table.
Whether the frontend compares content was decided per platform. EmuDeck
(md5) declares neocdz.zip with no hash and checkBIOS.sh never names it,
yet the proven claims of geolith and FBNeo were dropped and the pack
shipped a neocdz.zip without 000-lo.lo. checked_by_path() decides per
entry: no hash of the kind the frontend compares (any of md5, sha1,
crc32 under RomM's rule) and no zipped_file means a path. Measured: the
EmuDeck neocdz.zip slot and three RetroBat DS slots (dsi_bios7.bin,
dsi_bios9.bin, firmware.bin) now take the file the cores prove.
The triage, --changed-only and --strict counted refs only. Prose that
--realign-prose would move or refuse blocks every recale and bump, and
blastem read 0 to review. Each report now carries that reading. The
triage also gets a header, a closing count, and one sampling notice per
run instead of one per profile.
The RetroPie target scraper read master and the EmuDeck one the default
branch, while both platform files are pinned on a commit: a module flag
changed in between filtered packages the pinned list does not describe.
Both now read the revision pinned_revision returns, which also accepts the
codeload URL the RetroPie scraper records. EmuDeck Windows stays on the
emudeck-we default branch: the platform file pins no revision of it.
The lock refusal, "no pack for", "no manifest for" and "no pack to
verify" went to stdout, so a run redirected to a log exited 1 with
nothing on the terminal. A test reads both scripts and refuses an ERROR
line printed to stdout.
generate_pack refreshed the data directories before probing its output
lock. The refresh waits for every run holding a tree, and a pipeline holds
them all: a second build sat silent for hours instead of being refused.
The output lock is now taken first, and a refresh that has to wait for a
tree names it.
A value of another length was looked up as an MD5 and reported NOT FOUND,
a SHA-256 was dropped, and an input with no hash ended on "No valid
hashes found in input". Digests are now read by length (CRC32, MD5 and
its 29-digit Batocera form, SHA-1, SHA-256), SHA-256 is looked up in the
database, and any other value is refused with the formats accepted.
kronos tags the ST-V BIOS epr-19854.ic8 taiwan, mednafen_stv tags it
asia-ntsc, the SMPC area Mednafen names for Taiwan (ss.cpp:1119,
2363-2364). As siblings under asia they never matched, so a request in
one spelling dropped the file tagged in the other, and --region
taiwan,us dropped the Saturn sega_101.bin. AREA_TERRITORIES relates
each area to the territory it serves, china for asia-pal included, in
region.py and its installer copy.
emulator_region_drops counted as held any file that resolved. A regional
dump whose md5 the core's own check refuses won its region, the fallback
was withdrawn, and the emulator pack then refused the winner: no BIOS for
the system, and verify --emulator, reading the same drops, did not see
it. Held now means what the builder ships, as _ships decides on the
platform side.
--platform retroarch --system sony-playstaton listed the first ten systems
of the alphabet. The warning now names the closest systems and the
command that lists the platform's own, as --system alone already did.
The region grouping and phase 2 of each pack and manifest called
find_undeclared_files with the same arguments: 30 reports for the 15
manifests of --all --manifest, 2.8 s, now 15 and 1.7 s. The 15 manifests
are byte-identical before and after.
One unparsable commit in a profile's history stopped the walk and
marked every older prose citation unknown, which refused the recale and
bump for good (lindbergh-loader, df7346b3). The revision is now passed
over unless the pins differ on its two sides while the field's
citations changed across it.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
_fetch_asset hashed the cache copy, then hashed the path again for the
release check. A copy another run promoted in between answered the second
question, and the caller was told the cache held nothing when it held
the file asked for. Both checks now read one snapshot, taken while the
inode stays the same.
A source_commit string from before the field was keyed by mode pinned
the standalone repository, yet was read as a writing pin for every mode.
xenia-edge then saw its libretro pin move under unchanged prose, and
the recale and bump were refused.
The collection DAT held the one path per content the database keeps, so
auditing bios/ with it read 2,502 copies (RPG Maker, engine trees, dumps
filed under two consoles) as unknown files. It now lists every path under
bios/ that holds a file, 22,028 roms for the 22,031 files on disk, the
other three being .gitkeep placeholders.
parse_repo knows only the forges profile_sync fetches from, so the eduke32,
fury, dgen, skyline and splitwolf pages showed no pinned revision and
their citations stayed plain code. The pages now build commit and file
links for voidpoint.io, Bitbucket, SourceForge and Software Heritage.
refresh_data_dirs printed one line per entry and no total, a dry run named
the cached tag only, and cutting a quoted ETag at 12 characters kept one
quote. The run now ends on refreshed / up to date / failed counts, a dry
run shows the remote tag beside the cached one, and tags lose their quotes
before they are cut.
The role a part writes (source or upstream) was kept per path, first
met first kept, so a later part naming the other role was read in the
other repository. In prose the word source made a citation external
and the word upstream was dropped. The role now travels on each part.
An element whose md5 the truth contradicts without naming another is
written back whole. It was counted as an entry the format cannot keep.
It now counts as kept, and the md5 it keeps is named as withheld.
check_freshness --only native rebuilds the truth model to compare it, and
the hash conflict notes generate_truth reports opened the freshness output.
They are dropped there, and any other stderr line still passes through.
RomM compares file_size_bytes with the entry's size before any hash. A
new hash the truth gives no size for went out beside the old size and
was reported as a size removal. The entry now stays as written and the
correction is withheld and named.
Data directory owners were picked among every profile, aliases included,
and an alias has no page: the 90 FreeIntv overlays linked to
emulators/freeintv_ts_overlay/, a 404. Only a profile with a page owns a
tree now, and a page lists the trees of the aliases that point at it.
The coreinfo area compared .info names only: a firmwareN_path added to a
profiled core's .info came out OK. check_freshness now compares each
profiled .info's git blob with platforms/_core_info.json, recorded on
2026-10-21 from the current listing, and --record-coreinfo CORE records
one as reviewed.
A directory entry was joined to the collection by its own name, so the
11,976 files under alephone's Plugins/ and the cdogs, thextech and
easyrpg trees named no emulator on their card. FileConsumers now expands
the directory and records which entry reads each file. The emulator links
on a file card land on that entry, and a directory card names its copies
and the folder that holds them.
Downloader rejects an entry without an integer size (db_entity.py:187)
and compares it after each fetch (fetch_file_worker.py:127). A new hash
the truth gives no size for is withheld and named, not written beside
the old size nor reported as a size removal.
An element lists its cores. Its mandatory flag now follows whether those
cores need the file, and stays as written where none of them reads it.
cdi/cdibios.zip keeps mandatory=false (same_cdi does not read it), the
two amiberry kickstarts keep theirs, saturn_bios.bin becomes optional
for the three HLE cores it names.
diff_platform compared only version, files and core lists: a rescrape
that changed launchers, dual_mode_cores or a system's core, native_id or
data_directories came out identical. Every other field is now compared,
without the revision read (source) and the source_ref lines that move with it.
Every member was deflated, archives and PNGs included. On the 2026-10-20
RetroArch pack the .zip, .7z, .chd, .png, .ogg and .pk4 members are 2.1 GB
that took 28 s to deflate again for 9.6 MB saved (0.45 %), and about 16 GB
for 72 MB across all packs. Those formats are now stored. The choice reads
the member name only, so a pack stays byte-reproducible.
The analysis and firmware blocks printed their source_ref as plain code,
dropped any list or map inside a list item (cemu's firmware title
contents), cut values at 200 characters and let a folded note's second
line leave its admonition. Citations are now pinned links and every
value is shown on its own line.
Bios.cpp:64-68 hashes a .zip with Zip::Md5Composite, the md5 of its
members in name order. A profile's md5 on an archive is the container's,
so it neither pairs with, corrects nor fills that field, and an archive
addition with only a container md5 is left out.
The summary, the provenance table and the per-emulator Missing column
summed the report's gap_missing, which counts files the emulator's own
package installs: 1,356 files to source where 609 are. They get their
own row and column now.
The buildbot system row was planned as refresh_data_dirs.py --key
'buildbot system', which always exits 1 on an unknown key. A data row now
runs only when its subject is a _data_dirs.yml entry; the rest is shown
for a human to add.
Abdessamad Derraz